


Anchors

by Tomboy13



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Grief/Mourning, One spoiled houseplant, Original Character(s), Recovery, trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tomboy13/pseuds/Tomboy13
Summary: A short look at Jamie finding her footing after Dani is gone.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

The keys hit the bowl with a resounding _clink_ that broke the eerie silence of the flat, sudden and alarming. Everything was as she remembered. The throw they’d been wrapped in after that terrible night lay discarded on the couch; the smell of Dani’s perfume hung over her out-of-fashion denim jacket by the door; a coffee cup stood, empty save for some mould, on the kitchen counter. It had been months, but their one bed apartment downtown felt just the same. But it wasn’t the same, Jamie knew. Nothing would ever be the same again.

She’d stayed in England for as long as she could, sleeping in the room above the pub that George, the old landlord who remembered her from her gardening days, let her stay in for free. In the daylight hours she’d lie in bed, barely able to get up while Marion, George’s wife, tried to convince her to eat and drink, becoming more frustrated and less understanding as the days turned into a week – a fortnight – a month. At dusk she’d dress in the charity shop throw aways which were all she’d been able to afford with the money in her wallet, their meagre savings spent on the plane ticket, and she’d walk through the dark fields to the Manor, hoping against hope to see her love, her heart, rise from the lake as Viola had so many times before. For the duration of that long, cold, lonely winter, sat on the mossy stone bench by the water, wrapped in stale smelling hand-me-downs and an old coat that Marion had forced her to take, Jamie dreamed. She dreamed of Dani, as she was when she first arrived on that cursed estate, all wide eyes and American sheen. She dreamed of the night they’d seen the moonflower, and the countless nights in each other’s arms since, nights of sweat and passion and so much love that she’d wondered if it might break her. She dreamed of a time when she was content.

There were the nightmares too that snuck back in on those icy nights by the frozen lake, when her breath came in puffs of white, and her fingers turned a pale yellow that stung the next morning in front of the pub’s open fire. She tried not to think of those memories – the ones where Dani would drift somewhere over dinner, or she’d become uncharacteristically cruel, just for a moment, and her eyes would change. Not her eyes, Jamie scolded herself. Viola’s eyes. She dreamed of words written on a scrap of paper that explained everything and nothing at once, but which destroyed her life regardless.

Dani hadn’t risen. Not once, not even on Halloween, which Jamie had learnt during her time in America was a Big Fucking Deal for the spirit world; not when the first light of Christmas morning dawned pale and Jamie had dropped to her knees screaming huge, wracking tears; not on New Years Eve, when the fireworks from the village turned the frost on the grass blue and red and green. Slowly, without ever putting word to it, Jamie lost hope. Dani was gone, and Jamie, poor, guarded Jamie, was alone again. It was harder now, she’d thought one day in early January, just as the sun began to crest the pines; so much harder now that she’d known love, known what it was to be cherished and to cherish in return. She wasn’t a bruised, emotionally scarred kid anymore, getting her kicks by lashing out and getting into mischief; nor was she a sullen, sarcastic young woman, flirting to hide her insecurity and skulking in her greenhouses. She was nudging middle-age, a wife, and a widow, and she had no idea where to go from there.

She thought she might kill herself. She thought that maybe she might do it that night, after she’d had chance to thank George and Marion for all they’d given without asking in return. Maybe leave them the last remnants of hers and Dani’s bank account as a going-away-gift, all $7 dollars of it. In the back of her head, she could hear Dani’s disappointment, could hear the sadness that Jamie had proven herself weak under the strain of loss. The anger had come then, faint but there nevertheless, bubbling up under her heart-sick melancholy. _”Fuck you, Dani. You went off alone and left me to pick up the pieces, you don’t get to say how I handle that.”_ It wasn’t fair, and she hadn’t meant it, but it felt nice to speak, to hear her voice echoing across the crystal air, drifting over the gardens steadily going to fallow and up through the empty, bleak windows of the manor house. It felt nice to feel something that wasn’t sadness.

By the time she’d walked back to The Bear, the sun was well up in the sky, and the lanes had been busy with weekday commuters. The children walking to school had crossed the road to avoid her, as they did every day. She was locally famous, known as the lesbian from the Manor House who ran off to America with the Au Pair, and came back mental. Some of the villagers would call her damaged, others heartbroken. It depended on how kind they were trying to be. Jamie didn’t care. She knew what she looked like, with her sallow skin, dark-ringed eyes, and the weight falling off her in pounds. By sun-up the next day, she’d reasoned without emotion, it wouldn’t matter anymore. She’d just be another of the ghosts tied in local imagination to the creepy old manor, and she’d either be with Dani again or be nothing more than nutrients for the soil and a horror story to tell the children.

The letter had arrived that day, forwarded on by a helpful neighbour to the post office of the town he vaguely remembered Jamie mentioning once, a lifetime ago. If she didn’t return to the states and open the shop by the end of the month, they’d take the tenancy. No more Leafling. No more flat. 7 years worth of memories, of love, of _Dani_ , taken away from her. She’d booked a flight the same day, after a humiliating phone call to Henry Wingrave to beg a loan. Dani Clayton might be forever trapped within the ungodly black soil of Bly Manor, but Poppins, _her_ Poppins who had never been within 10 feet of a teapot without desecrating it and who cried at old movies, she was in Vermont, with their plants, their books, their tiny, contented life. 

Jamie let go a watery sigh, closing the door behind her and sliding the bolt into place. She half expected her wife to walk in from the bathroom or the bedroom, fussing over something she’d read in the newspaper. Maybe gently nagging Jamie about the loose shelf in the kitchen that she’d been promising to fix for six months, or asking what she wanted for dinner. The gardener stood for a moment, not breathing, hoping for it so fervently that she half convinced herself it had to happen. Then, feeling completely hollow in a way she hadn’t since she swam out into the depths of the pond and saw the love of her life at the bottom, she walked to the sofa, lay down facing the worn fabric, and cried.

It was dark by the time she could bear to roll over and allow her eyes to drift across the flat. By the gloom of the streetlights reflecting off the snow outside, she took in every detail as though seeing it for the first time. The little kitchen which she’d avoided wherever possible; the throws and cushions and paintings that Dani had joyfully picked up in markets and thrift stores, each unique and almost entirely tacky; the house plants that were now dead or dying, brown leaves and dried-up flowers perfectly mirroring how Jamie felt, inside and out. She’d loved those plants, each and every one, and Dani had loved her in return for it. She wondered idly about the state of the shop; thought with a pang of guilt of the stock that would have rotted and withered without anyone to care for it. She hadn’t thought in all her time away to ask one of their friends to pop in, devoured by her grief to the exclusion of everything else. She wondered how she’d make rent from a florist devoid of flowers, and promptly filed that away for a tomorrow-problem. In the street outside, a car drove slowly, crunching its gears and illuminating the room harshly with its headlights.

In the corner of her eye, a flash of green made Jamie squint. Carefully, not trusting what she thought she’d seen, she switched on the lamp behind her head, blinking in the sudden brightness. She pushed up onto her elbows, shaking her head. There, in pride of place on the sideboard, was a single living thing: a peace lily, wilting slightly for want of water, but somehow still holding on after months fending for itself.

Their engagement lily. The tears blossomed anew, a flood of happy memories crashing in as she looked at that bloody stubborn plant. Dani had insisted, once the high of the engagement wore off and they’d brought pizza to replace the ruined dinner, that they really did need to save the battered succulent from its sorry state. It would be bad luck otherwise, an omen on their marriage. Not wanting to argue when she could still feel her girlfriend’s kisses on her lips and the soreness of laughter in her own cheeks, Jamie had worked hard to make sure that happened. She’d coaxed it back to health with all the tenderness and care that she only showed to plants and lovers, meticulous and gentle. It had become something of a running joke between them, at least when Dani had a good day; when Dani still had good days. Jamie had nicknamed it Roland the Rat, on account of its frequent involvement in their domestic bickering. _”She said she’d pick up the takeout on her way home, didn’t she Roland? Looks like she forgot again, old pal.” “I’m going to fix that damn shelf myself one of these days, Roland.”_ And then they’d laugh, and kiss, and Dani would pretend to be cross, as she always did, and Jamie would get away with whatever minor misdemeanor had brought about the argument, as she always did.

Rising to her feet, she crossed the short expanse of floor until she stood over Roland’s terracotta pot. She traced her fingers over the painted figures on the outside – their anniversary date, and the letters J – D. She remembered Dani painting it, as Jamie had tsk’d, and rolled her eyes, and called her sentimental in that fond way of the completely in love. Inside Jamie’s chest, something stirred; something that for the first time in months wasn’t quite pain. She looked down at Roland, wiping at her tears with the back of her wrist, sniffing loudly.

“Its just you and me now, mate.” Jamie croaked out, shocked at how hoarse she sounded now she cared to hear it. “Lets get you some water, and then we’ll see what we can do for your fallen comrades, eh?”


	2. Chapter 2

She would sleep (in the morning, grabbing a few hours in the quiet hours before dawn); she would wake (with an aching body and a clouded mind, desperate for rest she knew she couldn’t afford and that wouldn’t come if she could); she would walk (every night, through the still of the deserted town, halfway towards being a ghost in her own right).

Some nights she’d crawl into bed before midnight, exhaustion getting the better of her, and sleep through until the alarm blared at 7. Other nights, she’d still be walking at 2am, her body stiff and cold, her throat raspy with the seemingly unending cigarettes. Tonight would be one of those nights, she could tell as she closed the shop, turning around the sign and resting her head on the cool glass. 

It had been nearly 12 months. In 4 days’ time, it would be one full year since she had last held Dani in her arms. Last spoken to her. Last passed time in the warm silence of married couples everywhere. On her finger, the claddagh ring shone in the last of the sunlight; her wedding ring. It was loose, the weight she’d lost on her return to Bly slowly coming back as she forced herself to keep going – forced herself to eat, work, bathe. To live, as Dani would have wanted. Even after a year Jamie could barely see the point of any of it, but she was stubborn, and even though the grief still felt like a stone sat in her stomach every waking moment of every day, she wouldn’t give in. Couldn’t give in. Because she was where Dani existed now, in Jamie’s memories, as Poppins, the au pair, the love of her life. On her long nightly walks through the streets and down to the disappointing duck pond in the public park, she had begun to form a half-idea that maybe it wasn’t time itself that caused the ghosts of Bly Manor to fade, but the slowly vanishing memory of who they had been in the living world. It had become a duty to her – a last gift, a final eking out of the care she’d had the privilege to show her wife – to live; to stay alive; to _remember_. She’d brought notebooks and filled them with her slow, meticulous handwriting, explaining in depth the colour of Dani Clayton’s eyes in the morning light, and the way she took her coffee; a joke they’d shared that had gotten them scowled off a bus in Houston, and the first Christmas that they’d tried to cook a turkey; the scraps of Clayton family history that’d slipped out here and there. A million small moments, caged within the boundaries of ink and paper so that no matter what happened, Jamie wouldn’t forget. 

Pushing away from the door, she slowly made her way upstairs to the tidy flat. As soon as she was inside, Jamie heaved a groan of relief, kicking off her work shoes and strolling to the kitchen. She nodded at Roland on the way, his green leaves showing no care for her presence but acting as a comfort nevertheless. Taking a cigarette from the pack that lived on the spice rack, she lit it with a cheap throw away lighter and flicked on the kettle. 

“What you looking at?” Jamie huffed at a snake plant that sat on the countertop, regarding her with imagined distaste. “Don’t judge me, son, I can have a fag in my own kitchen if I want one.”

She’d been doing it more and more, speaking aloud to the various potted plants that routinely drifted from the shop into the apartment. It did little to break the seemingly unending silence of the place, but made her feel better, in a melancholy way. It was funny to think how much she had enjoyed her own company before Dani, had positively avoided people if she could get away with it. But Poppins had changed that; she’d made the gardener crave human contact in a way that still felt alarming. 

No. That was wrong. Jamie didn’t crave human contact; she craved Dani’s presence. They’d built a life around each other for 7 years, moulding themselves until they fit into the small space, until their silences and emotions and nightmares and hopes could coexist in harmony, complimenting each other in a way that only came with time, proximity, and love. Now that Dani was gone, Jamie wasn’t sure how to fill the void left behind, and in desperation she would talk to her plants, smoke her cigarettes, and remember, and damn anyone who had a problem with it.

She realised absently that she was tapping her foot, the sole feeling itchy. This was how it started, on the long nights. The wandering nights. A restless anxiety, a twitching, bothersome prickling that only soothed with motion and fresh air. Jamie had supposed, in her more hopeful moments, that those nights might be the ones that Dani rose, and would dream as she walked that they were side by side in spite of the miles of distance. She’d often thought about making the trip to the Manor again, but she hadn’t yet. Too afraid to feel the fresh heartbreak at witnessing her lover drift by, unseeing and uncaring, as she trudged through their former home. Too afraid, if she were being honest with herself – and Jamie was almost always honest with _everyone_ \- that Dani wouldn’t rise; that Dani would never rise again; that Dani was just another person lost to the eager hands of death. Nothing special. Nothing holy. Just a human, of no importance at all to anyone save for a middle-aged woman in Vermont, smoking herself to death with her faded memories and spoiled houseplants. 

Exhaling a trail of blue smoke through her nose, Jamie stubbed out the Marlboro in the tacky glass _A Gift From California!_ ashtray that they’d picked up that first year in the States, bouncing from town to town, aimless and worried. Then, eyes feeling sore, she filled the sink near to the brim, and gazed down into the water as it settled. 

This had been another of her late-night musings. She remembered Dani’s fear when she saw the Lady in the Lake had followed her across the ocean, appearing in mirrors and windows and the hot metal of coffee pots. She remembered a day, a terrible, gut-punching day near the end, when she’d found her wife with an overflowing bathtub and empty eyes, staring at a reflection that belonged to someone else. If it could work that way for Dani, maybe it could work that way for her, Jamie reasoned. She’d said the words, after all – had screamed them into the lake, the icy water swallowing up the noise, but she’d spoken them nonetheless. Maybe if she hoped hard enough, if she stared long enough, Poppins would make herself known. The thought was a small simmering glow of hope in the black tunnel of her existence, and no amount of rationalising could extinguish it. So she filled the sink and the bathtub every night, and looked a little too long at her reflection in mirrors and shop windows, and allowed her feet to guide her to the moonlit pond, where she’d whisper her longing to the wine-dark water with no one to hear but the wind and the local junkies.

On the wall, the phone began to ring. Jamie growled incoherently, ignoring it until it stopped, her eyes never leaving the still rippling waters. After a second, it rang again. 

“For fucks sake.” The woman hissed, crossing the floor in two strides, and snatching the receiver up. “What?” She barked in annoyance.

“And a very warm hello to you too.” 

“Owen,” Jamie sighed, rubbing her forehead with one thin hand, “sorry, I didn’t realise it was you.”

“Well, colour me offended.” The man’s voice drifted down the wire; in the background, Jamie could hear the sound of cutlery and people loudly conversing in French. “Three and a half thousand miles and she forgets all about our date night.”

Jamie snorted. “Oh yeah, real romantic, two sad widowers spending every Friday night crying down the phone at each other. Can’t think why I forgot to pencil it in my diary.”

“Actually its 1am here and I’m just packing up the bar, so technically the only saddo is you.” Owen said in a helpful tone of voice. 

“Thanks for that.” Jamie intoned, deadpan, unable to help a small smile. Despite the distance, Owen had been her rock over the months since her return from England. Unable to produce a body or explain her lover’s absence by any natural means, the rest of the people in Jamie’s orbit had assumed that Dani had left, to get married or to see another part of the country. There were whisperings of a bad break up. Jamie didn’t correct them. What could she say? The truth was unbelievable to everyone who hadn’t witnessed it, and between the horror and the loss, Owen and Jamie had rolled together like ships in a secret storm, tethered by their shared history and familiar pain. “How’s things there?”

“Good. Another busy Friday night, keeping the better class of Parisian well fed and watered.” 

“What was the special?” Jamie asked, as she’d been asking every Friday for the previous 6 months. 

“Confit of duck with dauphinoise potatoes and creamed spinach.” Owen said promptly. “Bit different to the bangers and mash I used to have to make you lot every other day.”

“Look, I didn’t ask for them.” Jamie grinned into the phone. “That’s on you, mate.”

“And what have you eaten today in my absence?” 

Her smile fell. “I haven’t yet. It’s still early here.”

“Liar. This may surprise you but I’m not just a pretty face, I know how time zones work.” Owen sighed. “You can’t live on ciggies and tea.”

“I know.” Jamie gritted out, fighting a flush of annoyance.

“You need some proper food. Don’t make me fly out there.”

It was becoming a regular line that was morphing into less of a joke and more a threat as the months slogged on. Jamie leaned against the wall, rubbing at her tired eyes.

“I’m ok, Owen, really. I’d love to see you but I…I need some time. I’m still working through everything.”

“Moping, you mean.” Owen said in the easy, honest way he had that Jamie secretly envied. “Fine. I won’t come out there yet. But one of these days, you’re going to get home and find me on your doorstep with a casserole and a suitcase.”

“I shall inform airport security as soon as we hang up. Tell ‘em you’ve got a suitcase full of heroin. That should slow you down.”

On the other end of the line, Owen laughed. “Please don’t. I’m actually looking at my options. A friend from my sous-chef days has been offering me a partnership at his restaurant. It’s in LA, but it might be difficult to agree if I’m stuck at LAX with my trousers down and the snapping of a rubber glove sounding behind me.”

“That’s a bit good, Owen.” Jamie said, genuinely pleased for her friend. “Congratulations.”

“Nothing’s been decided yet.” Owen answered dismissively. “Are you still going to the lake?”

Jamie blinked at the sudden change of topic. “I, uh, yeah I am, as it happens.”

“Jamie,” he said, sucking his gums audibly, “you know if you get murdered by one of the n’er-do-wells that hang out round there, I’ll never find out. I’ll just assume you’re dodging my calls. It’ll really damage our friendship.”

“Some of them are nice, I’ll have you know.” Jamie pouted defensively, thinking of the strange crew of addicts, drunks and strays that hung around the town park after dark. “Besides, you know I can handle meself. Got a mean right hook.”

She could picture Owen rolling his eyes before he responded. “Just try not to get stabbed, ok?”

“For you, Owen, anything.” 

In the background of the call, there was a crashing as of multiple stacks of crockery being dropped from height. “Christ,” Owen swore, “look I’ve got to go. Eat some food and don’t take sweets from strangers. Promise?”

“Promise.” Jamie agreed, crossing her fingers petulantly behind her back.

“I’ll call next week.” Owen said distractedly. “Non, Clement, je t’ai dit-“ 

The line went dead.

Treacle slow, Jamie replaced the receiver on the hook, lolling backwards to press her shoulder blades into the wall, head falling back with a thump. She could feel a headache brewing behind the deepening creases of her forehead; she seemed to have one more often than not these days. 

On the other side of the room, her reflection stared blearily back at her. _Losing Poppins has aged you_ , Jamie thought with indifference, eyeing her shock of near-grey hair and the lines beginning to contour her face that had sprung up almost overnight. She was still a young woman, objectively, not even forty and yet she felt old where it counted: inside. The weight of a life filled with sorrow and misfortune was bearing down on her shoulders now that her one shining reprieve had been snatched away. 

_Chin up, darlin’_ , the florist could almost hear Dani saying in the affected attempt at an English accent that the American had never mastered, even after years by Jamie’s side. Clearing her throat, Jamie nodded, once, firmly, and pushed herself from her prone position. She’d make herself a sandwich with the last of the stale bread and eat the slightly wrinkled apple that had been withering in the fruit bowl for a week, and then she’d go out. The streets were going nowhere. She could steal herself an hour. She could.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ve got your passport, have you?”

Jamie sighed into the receiver. “I won’t need it. Thanks though, mum.”

“Look, I just don’t want a repeat of the 2003 Toronto incident. Its in date is it?”

“Owen,” Jamie said, trying to keep the annoyance from her voice, “it’s a domestic flight. Calm down.”

“Right.” On the other end of the line, there was a pause. “And you’re sure you still want to do this?”

Jamie bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah. Feels like I have to. For both of them. You?”

“Yep. Yes.” The man exhaled loudly. “It feels right.”

“Well, ok then.” There was another heavy silence, filled with the words that both of them struggled to find. Had always struggled to find, buried beneath stoicism and the British hatred of visible emotion. “I’ve got to go, the flights at 2 and I haven’t even called a taxi yet.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to pick you up at the airport?”

“No chance mate, I still have flashbacks to your driving.” Jamie smiled, trying for humour over the weight of their shared responsibility. Owen laughed dutifully.

“Well enjoy your cab ride then, ungrateful sod.” He said mildly. “I’ll see you at the dinner.”

“See you there.”

Ending the call, she dialed the number for a taxi cab, feeling her nerves calm slightly when the operator assured her that the car would be with her in 20 minutes or less. Hanging up, the gardener surveyed the flat. Unsurprisingly, it had changed over the last 13 years; she’d had to decorate after a burst pipe a few Februarys earlier, and some of the throws and pillows had had to be replaced due to overuse or, during one memorable Christmas, Marie throwing a full glass of red wine over the couch.

That was the other thing that had changed. There were trinkets from friends, and photos that had nothing to do with Dani or their short, all-consuming life together, littering the shelves and cluttering the walls. Jamie had friends now, or at least, mates, people she could call on in a bind; it hadn’t been intentional, but somehow along the way she’d gathered them up just like the spoiled plants in the apartment, waifs and strays the lot of them. There was Marie and Dawn who she’d had to take on in The Leafling when the business became to big and burly to manage alone. There was Stevie and Lou from the bar she’d taken to occasionally frequenting on her nightly walks, two strapping butch women with tender hearts and quick fists. There was Dave, and Lee, and Julie, ex-addicts from the long walking nights who she’d watched kick their habits and grow taller in the process. And always there was Owen, who was only the second person to ever see Jamie cry since she was barely older than a baby, and who had never thrown it back in her face. 

Moving to where her suitcase and carry-on bag sat by the front door, she did a quick check for her tickets, reading glasses, the small silver case that she took everywhere and which contained a photo of Dani and another of their ‘honeymoon’ all those years ago, and, in spite of what she’d said to Owen, her passport. She probably wouldn’t need it, but even after 20 years stateside, she was still so obviously foreign that it was better to be safe than sorry. Closing her purse and dropping to a squat, she felt uncharacteristic anxiety bubble in her chest.

“Dani, I’m not sure I can do this.” She whispered, running her hand through steel-grey hair, turned entirely now from its previous dark brown hue by time and grief. “I wish I knew I was doing the right bloody thing. Am I doing the right thing, Love?” As usual, there was no response from her wife, but the one-sided conversation felt like a comfort nonetheless.

The problem was, what if the story she told was too close to the truth? What if she slipped and used their real names, or forgot to change the layout of the house and grounds enough? When her and Owen had decided that the time had come to tell Dani and Hannah’s stories – to try and impart something of their memory onto the children they’d whole heartedly loved – they’d agreed that it shouldn’t be at the expense of the walls that the kids had built around that strange year, the year that the Lady of the Lake nearly took everything. There was no reason to expose the siblings to the trauma that had marred their caregivers' lives.

But then that was the point, at the crux of it all. The Lady of Lake, in one way or another, _had_ taken everything from both Jamie and Owen. Hannah had died because that bastard Quint had been trapped, angry and scared, at Bly in Viola’s gravity well; Dani had signed her death warrant when she uttered those words to save her young charge. Four lives inexplicably, terribly altered that day, to save two purer ones. It couldn’t have happened any other way, although Jamie bitterly wished it had, often in the early hours of an angry morning. But regardless, that they never even knew what had been given up so that they could thrive added a fresh layer of shit to the already layered sandwich. Jamie had seen how it hurt Dani, to be forgotten by the young minds she’d helped shape and save, but they’d all understood. It was just that now…well, things were different now. The young ‘uns were grownups, with spouses and jobs and one day soon, children of their own, and it felt right that they hear the story; _their_ story. It was an act of remembrance and reverence, to both Dani Clayton and Hannah Grose, for their history to be known, warts and all, but it was also a gift to give what had been forgotten to two of the main players. They’d just been at a loss as to how to make it happen.

It had been Owen’s idea, first. As soon as the wedding invite had landed in his mailbox, he’d rung Jamie to ask whether she wanted to be his plus one. Jamie, of course, hadn’t been invited. The girl no longer remembered her; had probably written her off as a figment of the imagination like the rest of that awful time, or worse, just another faceless member of staff that polished the daily lives of the wealthy everywhere. Jamie had protested, fearing that the pain of seeing her old employers might rip open some half-healed scars, or that it would be inappropriate to ruin the young woman’s marriage day with such horror, but when Owen suggested the story, it had sounded…perfect. _Perfectly splendid_ , Jamie snorted, shaking her head. A way to relate the events in just such a way that they’d soak them up, store them away in the back of their minds, without dredging the ugliness from the bottom of their repressed memories. 

“Oh good, story time.” Jamie muttered to herself with a weak chuckle, wiping the dew that had gathered at the corner of her eyes. Because that was all it was, at the end of the day: story time. A way to verbalise what Jamie had, after 13 years alone, finally managed to process. Owen had helped her write the narrative, filling the gaps that Jamie wasn’t there for or that Dani hadn’t been able to explain when she lived; crafting parts that made sense of the abstract concepts that the au pair had related, the snippets and flashes that she’d picked up from her paranormal guest, or that the children had described way back in 1987, before they’d all scattered to the wind. Jamie had spent weeks reciting it in the mirror until she could get from beginning to end without crying, getting the pauses and the emphases just so, until it sounded as natural as could be - until it sounded like a spur of the moment conversation starter, just the entertaining ramblings of another tipsy wedding guest. Then all that was left was to book flights to California, and let Owen steer the conversation to give her an opening. 

Outside in the street, the taxi driver honked his horn twice.

“Right then, lads.” Jamie said, clearing her throat and giving a firm nod as she rose from her crouch and gazed around at her houseplants with a frown. “I’ve left a note for Dawn, she’ll be in to water you on Thursday. Don’t die before I get back.”

The door closed with a click, the sound of the lock slipping into place echoing slightly in the empty living room. Unseen by any human, one brown eye and one blue eye watched the gardener leave from the hallway mirror, before fading into the reflection with a soft smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read this little story and Kudos'd it. Its been really cathartic for me to write, and I'm so in love with these characters. 
> 
> Wishing you all a happy and safe Christmas, in whatever form your Christmas takes (or doesn't take) this year. Stay strong, and remember: no matter how dark it gets, it will ALWAYS get better.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll level with you up front: I won't say that this has a happy ending as such, because Dani will still be gone, but it will, like grief, get better.


End file.
